Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are used today in a plurality of lighting and display applications, where they are preferred over conventional lamps due to significant advantages such as high energy efficiency and long operating life. A special type of LEDs are organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). Another type of electrical load that is targeted by the present invention are LASER devices.
Regarding the demands posed on driver circuits for loads such as LED, OLED and LASER diodes, these electrical loads require very accurate on-current. In some applications, lighting units are driven in a pulsed manner. It is thus important for the driver circuit to be able to provide current pulses with accurate on-current, minimal pulse distortion, low raise and fall times and low overswing.
In many lighting and display applications, the loads are operated with pulse patterns. For example, this may be used to control the brightness by techniques such as PWM (pulse width modulation) or PDM (pulse density modulation). If the switching frequency is high enough, the human eye will integrate the brightness and perceive a mean brightness.
Also, pulses may be used in display applications with sequential colour rendering. In order to use monochromatic light modulation devices, such as, e.g. DMD (digital micromirror device) or DLP (digital light processing) for displaying colour images, the devices are sequentially used for different colour lights. The light, in this case, may be provided by LED, OLED or LASER diodes sequentially driven with short pulses.
Known electrical circuits for driving such loads include on one hand linear mode driving circuits. Such linear mode driving circuits are known to the skilled person and may be implemented in many different ways. A linear current driver comprises an amplification element (such as, for example, an operational amplifier, a transistor, MOSFET or other comparable component) and a current sensing means for sensing a current through the driver and controlling the amplification element to achieve an analogue control with feedback.
Linear current drivers can be designed to have the advantage of an excellent dynamic behavior, but are known to introduce high losses.
Another known type of driving circuit is a switching converter. Such a converter comprises at least one switching element and a reactive element (such as an inductance or capacitance, or both). An output voltage is generated by sequential switching operations of the switching element. By modification of the duty cycle, the output may be controlled. Switching converters are known for high efficiency, but have limited dynamic behavior.
In US 2006/0108933, LEDs are driven by a combination of a switching converter and linear current drivers. The DC to DC converter outputs a direct current voltage for feeding two LED series connected in parallel. Each series comprises a constant current circuit connected in series. Each constant current circuit receives a control signal and controls the LED current accordingly. An analogue feedback circuit compares feedback voltages for each LED series and uses the lower of the two as a feedback voltage to the DC to DC converter. The converter compares the feedback voltage to an internal reference voltage and adjusts its output voltage accordingly.
It is an object of the invention to provide a driver circuit and operating method well suited for the mentioned loads, which provides both reduced losses and exact control, especially for pulsed applications, and may easily be used.